


Like the Sky

by Lomonaaeren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Gen, Gore, Manipulation, Mentor Voldemort (Harry Potter), Minor Character Death, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Pure-blood Bigotry, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter), Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-08-01 08:01:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry Apparates at nine years old and attracts the attention of a Death Eater who takes him into a whole, new, dangerous world—one where the Lord Voldemort rules and his parents fought on the wrong side of the war, but also one where he is valued and taught to use his magic and placed forever above people such as the Dursleys. Harry grows up neither Dark nor Light in a world where many things interest him more than rebellion.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be updated irregularly, whenever I complete a chapter. Its title comes from a quote from George Orwell’s _1984:_ “Any kind of organized revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her there might be in the younger generation: people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog.”
> 
> The R rating is for violence.

 

“You’re sure? They did it?”

“Yes, Professor. Absolutely sure. I—I saw the look on her face before the spell took hold. She achieved exactly what she wanted to.” Sirius Black broke into harsh sobs as he stood in the shell of the ruined house, his hands wrapped around his head. “I was too late. I _failed_ them.”

“You came as soon as you heard the call.” Albus Dumbledore touched Sirius’s shoulder and stepped away, shaking his head as he looked at the body sprawled on the ground in front of him. James Potter had died as he’d lived, bravely, defying the Dark. He’d taken five Death Eaters with him, even after half the house fell in. Albus closed his eyes and stood there until the pressure of tears dimmed behind them. “Young Harry is safe?’

“I couldn’t see where he went at the other end of the spell.” Sirius managed to get himself under control with a massive effort that choked down more pain than Albus knew he could ever understand. “Do you think—”

“She would have had to use blood to control it. That has to mean in the Muggle world, with her Muggle relatives.”

“Then—we have to go get him back! I’ve _met_ Petunia. Who knows what she’s going to do to Harry?”

Albus reached out and squeezed Sirius’s shoulder, hard, making the young man pay attention to him. “Do not think that way, Sirius. The Muggle world is infinitely safer for Harry than the wizarding world at the moment, and almost none of the Death Eaters know how to navigate it. They would draw the attention of Muggle law enforcement wherever they went. And do you want to draw attention to Petunia by seeking her out?”

“Who would follow me?” Then Sirius’s face altered terribly. “The traitor.”

“Yes.” Albus glanced at the other body lying in the wreckage. They had all been certain Peter Pettigrew was the traitor; they had orchestrated the conversations they allowed him to overhear and what missions he went on for months. And then tonight he had died, fighting beside James, and with no Dark Mark on his arm.

“There is another reason to leave Harry there,” Albus continued, drawing Sirius’s blank, grieving gaze from Peter and James. “Voldemort will do everything he can to cut connections between the Muggle and the wizarding worlds. If he does eventually discover Harry’s hiding place, or Harry’s magic becomes unmistakable and needs to be trained, it would be far better to have him raised thinking of Muggles as human beings, not insects to be trampled by a crushing boot.”

Sirius nodded slowly, although he wrinkled his nose like a dog faced with a strong smell. “I wonder if Petunia will actually treat _him_ like a human being.”

“She once wanted to attend Hogwarts.” Albus felt the small regret catch for a moment against his throat, but he swallowed it. He had many bigger griefs to swallow now. “She will understand what it means to be deprived of the magical world.”

Sirius sighed. “And I suppose we have to leave before any more Death Eaters get here.”

Albus inclined his head. “But first we must hide the evidence.” His wand rose, and he began to cast the spell that would reduce the Potter house to ashes.

“Wait! Peter and James. Can’t we—”

Albus glanced sideways. “You know why we cannot, Sirius. Anyone who cared to dig up the graves would uncover evidence we cannot afford for them to have.”

“Oh. So you’re going to spread the story that _everyone_ died here?”

Albus nodded. “Yes. That would be the best protection of all for Harry, of course, if they thought him dead.”

Sirius sighed, but said, “Okay. Just let me get a few things out of the house. Things James would have wanted me to save. Maybe I’ll get to give them to Harry someday.” He vanished into the house, and Albus heard the sound of furniture shifting.

Albus took the time to say farewell to two of his old students, and silently beg Peter’s pardon for having wronged him. Sirius was out of the house in several minutes, his old trunk floating behind him.

The cracks of Apparition sounded, and made it clear that it was more than time to go. Albus gripped Sirius’s sleeve and ignited the house in the same moment. They Apparated in the moment after.

They might have lost for now, but Albus was determined to live to be a sting in Voldemort’s hide as long as he might.

*

Voldemort stood at a distance from the ruins of the house, his wand carefully tracing spirals and corkscrews in the air. His Death Eaters surrounded him with silver masks pulled over their faces. The masks did not matter. Voldemort knew every one of them, knew their breathing and their stances and what secrets to use as their reins.

The blacked bones pulled free of the ruins and floated towards him. Voldemort assembled the skulls, boiled artificially free of hair and flesh by his necromancy, and then closed his eyes and sent his spirit ranging along paths that few wizards had ever walked.

It did not take long. Even without the Resurrection Stone shining on his finger, Voldemort could have found spirits lingering nearby after their violent deaths. He pulled them back into their skulls, and waited patiently as they screamed and the skulls vibrated, through the first moments of disorientation the dead always had.

“You will tell me your names.” It was important to be commanding with the newly deceased, who had far more free will than most Inferi.

The skulls continued to shake in rings for a moment. Voldemort imposed his will on them again, this time bringing it down like an invisible whip. A crack sprouted through the smaller skull. That was enough to cow the spirit inside.

“Peter Pettigrew.” The name was said with a sniffling whine. Voldemort wrinkled his nose. He could imagine the kind of man this one would have been in life. Too cowardly to stay loyal to a principle, he would require a person.

“James Potter,” said the other, in an echoing voice that made it sound as if he was fighting off the impulse of the spell even as he succumbed.

Voldemort touched his fingers to his lips. It was not like Dumbledore to leave two such prizes behind, which meant this might be a trap. “You will tell me the sequence of events that happened when my Death Eaters came to the house.”

There was a little more resistance from Potter’s spirit, but Pettigrew’s had already begun to speak, his voice slipping into a monotone that showed the memories and loyalties of life were already slipping away from him. “I came to the house because James thought I was a traitor. He was going to interrogate me, subtly, and see if I had passed on information he had fed me before to the Death Eaters. But the attack came before he could finish the interrogation.”

“One of the Death Eaters said something about my son.” Potter’s voice was becoming a monotone now, too.

Voldemort did not react outwardly, but he made mental notes. He had an execution to order tonight, then, for not knowing how to keep one’s mouth shut. “Explain to me how many of them you killed, and their names.”

“The only one I recognized was Garrett Rosier.” Potter sounded now as if he had been dead for years. “I killed him by piercing him through the eyes with a piece of a broken vase…”

Voldemort listened to the rest of the recitation of the battle, which was, in the end, rather dry hearing. Pettigrew and Potter hadn’t known most of their attackers. They hadn’t caused the fire. They didn’t know who had. They didn’t know whether any of the Death Eaters who had come with the original attackers had escaped, either.

Voldemort sighed and gestured with his wand when the answers to his questions had turned to mere negative monosyllables. In seconds, the skulls had crumbled into black dust. He held out one of the crystal potions vials that he often carried with him, and the dust poured into it. Then he capped it and put it back into his pocket, deep in thought.

There was little he had to do tonight, beyond ordering the execution. He wondered for a moment whether it was worthwhile to pursue the person who had set the fire—who was probably Albus, of course—or clear the rubble to find out whether any other usable bodies had survived.

In the end, he decided not to. The attacks tonight had broken the back of Albus’s Order. Voldemort had received the reports from everyone except the Death Eaters who had been here, and out of sixty Order members, fifty-six were dead. Voldemort was not lucky or foolish enough to believe Albus would be among them any time soon.

But the war had ended tonight. He had matters of administration to organize.

Spreading a warning to look out for the Potter child, whom he did not believe had died in the collapse of the house, would be enough.

*

With a bump and a shiver, a baby wrapped in a thick, warm blanket landed on the steps of a Muggle home. The baby opened his eyes and began to fuss. For a moment, someone bent over him and a hand touched his forehead.

“This is all we can do,” said a voice so thick with sadness that the baby stopped crying as if he didn’t want to add to it. “It seems such a stupid thing. So small.” For a long moment, the voice paused as if someone else was going to speak, but that was impossible, given what had happened that night. And then the hand was gone, and the voice, faded away, never to return to that place.

Petunia Dursley screamed when she found him in the morning.


	2. Meetings

“The Mudblood is waiting for you, my lord.”

Voldemort watched Yaxley until the man was shrinking back towards the door, one hand out as though he would fumble with the lock. Then Voldemort sighed and threw a cloth over the globe that allowed him to watch what his Imperiused Muggle officials were doing at any one time. The desk in front of him was large, half-circular, gleaming mahogany, and utterly empty other than the globe.

“Tell me that you did not speak that word in front of the girl, Yaxley.”

“Um. M-might have, my lord.”

Voldemort shook his head. He wanted to build a better world, and unfortunately, that sometimes meant using rotten wood. He drew his wand and silently activated the curse built into the Marks of all Death Eaters when they had done something to mildly displease him. Yaxley dropped into the midst of a waking nightmare, his eyes widening and silent screams bubbling from his throat.

Voldemort tossed a Portkey at him, and watched with no emotion as he left the room. Then he used his wand to open the door, and settled back behind his desk.

“Please come in, Miss Granger.”

The girl marched into the room. Voldemort could see the pale face and the twitching hands she hid behind her back a moment later, but she met his eyes with a boldness that he found commendable.

“Are you Lord Voldemort?” she asked.

“I am.” Voldemort gestured with his head to the chair in front of his desk, meanwhile twitching his wand under the half-circle of wood to cast a spell that would assess her magical strength. The cloud that appeared over her head was invisible to everyone except him; he studied it while she fussily seated herself. It looked as if she had the sorts of talents that would take her far into ordinary academic study, visible as sparkling diamond shards in the middle of the cloud, and she would also do well at Charms and Transfiguration, said the ruby and golden shards among the rest. And necromancy, according to the obsidian ones.

An interesting child. Lord Voldemort dismissed the spell and asked her, “Do you know why you’re here, Miss Granger?”

“Because your Death Eater said something about me not belonging with my parents, sir.” Granger’s brow wrinkled. She was, of course, on the variation of the Calming Draught that they gave most new-taken Muggleborns, one that left the mind to work unimpeded so that Voldemort might assess them but dulled their emotions. “I don’t understand that, though. Are my parents not really my parents? Did they steal me from somewhere?”

It was an entertaining speculation, one that Voldemort might have allowed her to go on thinking if there had been any purpose to it. But instead, he shook his head and murmured, “It is only that you have magic, Miss Granger, while they are Muggles.”

“But where does my magic come from if Muggles and mages are so separate, sir?”

“It comes from magic in the environment. I suppose that you might have heard of the scientific studies on how radiation can alter genes, Miss Granger?”

“Oh, yes, sir! You mean nuclear weapons?”

“Yes. The magic in the environment can alter a Muggle woman’s genes in the same way. It does nothing to help the Muggle herself acquire magic, of course, but it means that she can pass the change on to her children.”

“I—that’s fascinating, sir. But how many people know that? When was it discovered? Are there books I can read about it? What’s the proportion of Muggle women who have genes like that? How can you know if they have it?”

Voldemort raised an eyebrow at the flood of questions, and after a second, Granger seemed to realize she might have asked too many. She looked down, flushing. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“You need not fear upsetting me. The fact is that so far, the information has been published in confidential memos that only my private researchers and I have read. You can imagine what sort of chaos this would cause if it got out.”

“Well…not really, sir. I mean, I’m new to the mage world. I don’t know how they would be affected by things like this.”

Voldemort granted her a tolerant smile. “There are many who are used to thinking of magic as something that follows blood alone. You will have heard of pure-bloods?” Granger nodded her head until it looked as if she was dancing. “They would dislike the notion that magic hovers in the environment and grants itself fairly randomly to those Muggles that live in a certain place or engage in certain behavior. They might even question why _they_ sometimes have children that are non-magical. It is capable of causing questions, Miss Granger, and the last thing I wish to cause is unrest. Our world has had enough of that. The information will be released slowly.”

“Mr. Yaxley said something about a war…”

Voldemort nodded. “A very recently ended one, one that almost exposed us to the Muggles. I will take no chances.”

“Okay, sir. But, um…why tell _me_ about that?”

Voldemort gave her a faint smile. “I have judged you mature enough to handle the information, Miss Granger.”

Watching her head almost visibly swell made Voldemort want to chuckle. Yes, he had judged her correctly. Some new Muggleborns introduced into their world for the first time wanted attention, others money, some power or reassurance. But Granger’s lever was knowledge, and Voldemort knew how to apply it.

Granger sat up in her chair and took a deep breath. “Does that mean that you don’t want me to tell anyone about this, sir?”

“I would want you to wait on the specifics until we decide how to release the information. You can do your best to comfort and reassure some of the other Muggleborns, the ones who may not understand how wide the gap between them and their Muggle parents is. In fact, I would take it as a personal favor, Miss Granger. Welcome to the beginnings of your career in politics.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked as if she would almost vibrate off the chair. She bowed her head, instead, and murmured, “I understand, sir. I won’t fail you. You can count on me.”

Voldemort nodded and spent a few more moments asking her about her accommodations (with the Greengrass family), the sort of things she expected to learn in the next few years before she was officially moved from the primary school attached to Hogwarts to Hogwarts itself (everything), and the incidents of accidental magic in her childhood (making objects float, repairing the torn pages of a book instantly). Granger left the office content, and Voldemort felt much the same way. He would be influencing the girl in a way that meant he would harness her possibly dangerous brain for the society he wanted to create instead.

In truth, there were no firm conclusions yet on why Muggleborns were gifted with magic, although his researchers had come up with some intriguing theories. Voldemort would continue to fund them until they found a firm conclusion. But he suspected it wasn’t as simple as magic from the environment, or the proportion of Muggleborns in Britain would have been higher than it was.

Ah, well. In a short time, it would become even higher. Voldemort had only begun five years ago to add Severus’s special potion to Britain’s water supply, the potion that would guarantee any Muggle woman in Britain could only carry a magical child to term; non-magical fetuses would be spontaneously aborted. To avoid an outcry, the effects of the potion ramped up gradually, and Muggle children were being born now, and many of the spontaneous abortions happened so early that the potential mothers never knew they had been pregnant at all. Voldemort was moving slowly by necessity, and would move more slowly when it came to introducing the potion to other magical societies on the Continent and in the States, Africa, and Australia.

Was he not immortal? Did he not have time to live and see the Muggles go extinct?

*

Hermione gazed around in awe as Mrs. Leto Greengrass led her into the new classroom. She had spent the past fortnight getting an introduction to the magical world in a few rooms that were at the front of the Merope Gaunt Memorial School for Muggleborns, rooms also used for mage children younger than she was. This was a room that looked much more suited to the studying she wanted to do.

It had enchanted windows enclosed in high arches, showing many different historical scenes. Hermione saw a few tales she was already familiar with, like Merlin receiving the first wand, and others that looked entirely unfamiliar but exciting, like volcanoes exploding and Lord Voldemort fighting someone in bright robes. There were bookshelves between the windows, all of them thick with leather-bound tomes and scrolls in blue cases, and a circle of chairs with only a few desks in the middle of the room.

"Here you are, Hermione." Mrs. Greengrass had a soft voice, although Hermione had already seen a little of her sterner side when she asked about her parents. She settled Hermione in a chair made of white wood off to the side of the desk. Hermione looked around and then hesitantly up at Mrs. Greengrass.

"Ask your questions, dear."

Hermione nodded. "We don't each get a desk, Mrs. Greengrass? How do we write or take notes?"

Mrs. Greengrass kneeled down in front of her. "This classroom is for oral history and magical practice, Hermione. Your teacher will put a wand on the desk and tell you the instructions, then hand the wand around in a circle and ask you to copy her."

Hermione stared at her. "But nothing gets written down, Mrs. Greengrass? How do we remember the instructions?"

Mrs. Greengrass smiled, a hard smile that made Hermione a little afraid. She already knew that not everyone in this new world liked Muggleborns. People who said the word “Mudblood,” for example.

But Mrs. Greengrass reached out and gently touched Hermione’s hand. “You will learn to memorize it. Did you know that ancient mages, before they had writing, or before writing was common, memorized almost everything? Yes, spellbooks and grimoires are useful. But they also passed on knowledge from parent to child about the way the earth works, the contents of family history, and spells.”

“I mean—that sounds interesting, Mrs. Greengrass, but if that was ancient mages, and we’re modern mages—”

“Lord Voldemort also believes that that was one reason ancient mages had such a high proportion of wandless magic, and we do not.”

Hermione blinked as she tried to work that out. “Does that mean that—memorizing spells and just _saying_ them somehow makes them more powerful than reading them from books and casting them with wands?”

“That is a crude rendition of the theory, but in truth, yes, Miss Granger. It comes close.”

“Do we only get to read books in Hogwarts?”

“You will be introduced to some recent history next year. It is vital that you understand how you came to be in this world, when it used to be the policy to leave Muggleborns to languish until their eleventh birthday, or even later.” Mrs. Greengrass gave her a somewhat stern look. “With your birthday in September, you would have had to wait almost an entire year to go to Hogwarts, and that might have caused you damage.”

Hermione thought about arguing that her parents would never abuse her, but on the other hand, she’d already heard about the awful things that had happened to other mage children. She already knew that you couldn’t use one person’s experience to contradict a whole lot of other people’s. One of her books had called it a statistical anomaly. She might be one.

And when she thought of the secrets Lord Voldemort had entrusted her with, she knew the whole society would change someday. She had to be patient, though, and not reveal those secrets, or he would probably never trust her with anything again. And that would be all _her_ fault.

She settled back into her seat and watched as the other students trickled into the room. She could wait to share those secrets, to ask for a bigger share of the world. She knew she _would_ get it. Lord Voldemort wouldn’t tell his secrets to just anyone.

Mrs. Greengrass squeezed her hand and walked out of the room. Hermione looked at the other children’s faces and saw that all of them were mostly calm. There was only one tiny girl with bright ginger hair who was sniffling and wiping at her eyes.

Hermione caught her gaze and smiled hesitantly, patting the seat next to her. The girl gave the same kind of smile back and walked over to sit down next to her.

“What’s your name?” Hermione asked, holding out her hand. The girl shook it. She had short, chewed nails, which made Hermione feel calmer. At least not every girl in her new world was shockingly beautiful with neat nails, the way Mrs. Greengrass looked all the time. “I’m Hermione Granger.”

“You don’t have an adoptive family?”

“Oh, yes. Of course. The Greengrasses. But I didn’t know I was supposed to say something about them when I introduced myself.”

The girl smiled shakily back at her. “That’s all right. I’m Ginny Weasley, adopted by the—the Lestranges.” She bowed her head. “I’m not a Muggleborn. The parents who raised me were traitors to the Dark Lord. They would have kept me from coming here to school or going to Hogwarts. I’m grateful that the Lestranges rescued me.”

She said the words very quickly, and Hermione didn’t think she was really happy about it. But she was almost happy about that, herself. That meant she didn’t have to pretend that she didn’t have complicated feelings about her Muggle parents.

“The Dark Lord told me we belong in the mage world, but I still don’t feel that way all the time,” she whispered.

“You’ve _met_ him?” Ginny’s eyes were wide.

Hermione nodded and started to explain, but the teacher spoke up then, a tall woman with stern dark eyes. “If you will pay attention, please. My name is Andromeda Black. I am here to teach you the basics of your history and the first magical spells you will learn…”

*  
Harry pounded around the corner and didn’t look back.

Dudley and Piers and the others were __right there.__ He had to keep ahead of them. Dudley had been scolded by a teacher this morning for having a dirty face. He was in the mood to take it out on Harry. Harry had to __move__.

He heard someone shout behind him, and then there were footsteps, a lot closer than Harry’d thought. He ducked his head and flinched and tried to run again—

Then he just wasn’t on the ground anymore.

Harry turned and stared down. Down, because he was on the roof of the school. Dudley and the other boys were standing under him with their mouths open. Then Dudley started to grin.

“Harry’s going to be in __trou-ouble__!” he sang. “You’re not supposed to be climbing on the roof, freak!”

Harry cringed. He knew that. And he would be in even more trouble with Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon when he got home, because this was a freakish thing they couldn’t explain, the way Aunt Petunia had explained Dudley’s clothes shrinking in the wash to herself. This was going to be like growing out his hair overnight all over again.

“You are such a __freak__!” Dudley said, and Piers and the other boys behind him grinned and nodded.

“Watch what you’re saying, Muggle.”

Harry blinked as he saw someone just step out of thin air. He had a big, thick dark cloak on, and he had a stick in his hand. Harry wondered if he’d been robbing a house or something. He faced Dudley and the other boys down.

“You’re the freak here,” the man went on, in a rumbling voice that made him sound like he was chewing rocks. “Chasing someone six-to-one? Threatening a __wizard__?” Then the man paused, like someone else invisible was talking to him. Harry almost fell off the roof, he was leaning over so far to try and see them.

“Right, a mage,” the man muttered. “I always forget that.”

Dudley had recovered from his surprise by now. “You’re just a freak like him!” he declared. “You can’t do anything to me. I’m going to tell my __daddy__!”

The man chuckled. “Just what I would expect from a Muggle,” he said, and then the stick rose and gestured. Harry saw two sharp-edged red things tear out of the stick and fly towards Dudley and the other boys. They screamed as they started to bleed. Harry watched open-mouthed. The two things ripped through them like flying multi-bladed knives and then turned back around.

Harry shuddered as he realized that maybe those red things could __kill__ Dudley and the others. He stood up. “No, please!” he shouted. “Don’t do that!” He had to stop the man—

He was back on the ground. The man whirled around to face him. He had a thick face and rotten yellow teeth that showed when he smiled. But Harry couldn’t help smiling back, because the man looked approving in a way that none of his teachers or his relatives ever had.

Then Harry remembered the red things, and said, “Please stop! Please!” He turned back to find the red things hovering over Dudley and the other boys, who were all on the ground. Harry blinked and looked more closely. It looked like they were—asleep?

“Don’t worry, kid,” the man said. “I’ve used a Memory Charm on them. They’re going to wake up and think they were beating each other up, and that’s how they got those wounds.” He chuckled. It was a nasty sound. “Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not such close friends, after this.

“But enough about the Muggles.” He took a step towards Harry, watching him intently. “ _ _You’re__ the special one. Apparating twice in a row like that, and you’re what? Six?”

“Nine,” Harry said indignantly. __He__ couldn’t help it if he was small for his age.

The man blinked. “Huh. And what’s your name?”

Harry considered him cautiously for a second, but he couldn’t see why it would be so bad for a freak to tell his name to another freak. “Harry Potter.”

The man’s smile spread all over his face this time. “No __shit__? The legendary lost Potter kid? And strong enough to Apparate at nine?” He laughed aloud and then reached down and pulled up his left sleeve. “My Lord is not going to __believe__ this shit.”

Harry asked, very quickly, because this man could be another adult who liked to ask questions but didn’t like Harry to ask them, “What’s Apparate? And why am I legendary? And do you swear __all__ the time?” Then he gasped when he saw the black snake-and-skull tattoo on the man’s arm. “And what’s __that__?”

“One at a time.” The man was still smiling, so maybe he didn’t mind questions. “Apparating is crossing distances without walking through them—what you just did when you appeared on the roof and then on the ground again. It’s powerful magic. Most kids can’t do that until they have a wand, at the very least. Most people can’t do it at all until they’re seventeen.”

Harry felt himself blush. The man was looking at him like he was __special,__ not a freak. “And the other stuff?”

“Anyway,” the man went on, “you’re legendary because your parents died but somehow people smuggled you into the Muggle world. That’s people without magic,” he added, probably because he saw Harry’s mouth opening again. “No one knows how they did it. My Lord—he’s the one in charge of our government—has been searching for you ever since. He doesn’t think any magical child should be raised around Muggles.”

Harry hesitated. He wanted to say that he agreed, but he thought it would sound rude. “I live with my aunt and uncle.”

The man snorted a little. “Should have thought to look there in the first place,” he muttered. “Anyway. I swear all the time because I __can__ , and this tattoo is the Dark Mark. It connects me to my Lord. I’ll talk to him, and if he agrees to see you, then you’re coming with me.” He cocked his head at Harry. “I mean, even if he doesn’t agree to see you right away, then you’re still coming with me. We don’t leave any wiz—mage kid with Muggles.”

“What’s a wizmage?”

“We used to be called wizards, now we’re mages. Just a second, Potter.” The man touched the tattoo on his arm, and Harry gasped as the snake reared up and __off__ his skin and looked at him.

“Found Harry Potter, my lord,” the man said, his eyes looking distant. “He’s been living with the Muggles, all right. He Apparated __twice__. You want to see him now?”

There was a little silence, and then the snake bobbed its head. The man grinned. “Great. He says yes. Come with me, kid.” He held out his hand.

The snake was also hissing. Harry listened and blinked. “The snake said yes, too?”

“O’ course, it nodded—wait. You can understand the snake?”

Harry took a slow step backwards. Maybe this was too freakish even for wizmages.

It didn’t matter. The man grabbed his wrist and grinned. “Oh, yeah, my Lord is going to __love__ to meet you. And my name’s Walden Macnair, by the way. Don’t think I mentioned it. Come on, kid.”

“But—my aunt and uncle—my cousin—” Harry glanced over at Dudley, who was still asleep.

“That was your cousin chasing you?” Macnair snorted. “You’re __definitely__ coming with me. It’s as much as my hide’s worth to leave a mage kid with abusive family.”

Harry still hesitated. “I’ll be in a place with people who have magic? Like me?”

“Nothing but. Now __come on__.”

And they Apparated, and it was the last time Harry ever saw Dudley.


End file.
